VATICAN CITY - The Vatican’s financial watchdog has reported a dramatic increase in suspicious transactions at the Vatican bank, but officials sought to downplay any rise in criminal activity.

VATICAN CITY - Despite fevered speculation in the media and across Latin America, the Vatican says Pope Francis has not advanced slain Salvadoran Archbishop Oscar Romero toward sainthood — at least, not yet.

VATICAN CITY - Pope Francis will be accompanied on his first visit to the Middle East by Argentine Rabbi Abraham Skorka and Muslim leader Omar Abboud — two friends from Buenos Aires.

VATICAN CITY - No matter how sophisticated and how many algorithms are programmed to help a drone or other machine make calculations before firing on a target, autonomous weapons systems could never comply with international human rights law, a Vatican official said.

VATICAN CITY - After weeks of speculation, Pope Francis made it official on May 10 that Pope Paul VI could become the latest pope poised to become a saint after a miracle was accredited to Paul’s intercession.

The American nuns who were publicly scolded by the Vatican’s top doctrinal official for disobedience and promoting unorthodox beliefs have rejected the criticisms, and say their “attempts to clarify misperceptions have led to deeper misunderstandings” between Rome and the organization representing most of the 50,000 sisters in the U.S.

VATICAN CITY - The Vatican issued an urgent appeal today for the release of more than 200 Nigerian schoolgirls kidnapped by the Islamist militant group Boko Haram.

NEW YORK - The German cardinal who has been called the “Pope’s theologian” said fresh Vatican criticism of American nuns was typical of the “narrower” view that officials of the Roman Curia tend to take, and he said U.S. Catholics shouldn’t be overly concerned.

VATICAN CITY - The Vatican has effectively addressed the “worldwide scourge” of clerical sexual abuse over the past decade and promoted the reporting of allegations to both Church and legal authorities, a United Nations panel heard.

Catholic nuns in the United States have been thumbing their nose at Rome’s demands to toe the doctrinal line and they need to obey or face serious consequences, the Vatican’s enforcer of orthodoxy said in a surprisingly tough talk to women representing most American sisters.